


Contents Under Pressure

by pintyp



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: (haha depression more like DAB-pression am i right ladies hahaha i want to die), (i mean it's not REALLY post canon it happens while the player is at the elite four i guess?), Angst, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Men Crying, Post-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Spoilers, loosely based on personal experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pintyp/pseuds/pintyp
Summary: A box of green tea brings up bad memories for Guzma.-NOTE: I do not wish to romanticize the relationship between Guzma and Lusamine in any way, shape or form. I only tag the ship name so as to warn readers who may have suffered trauma that it will contain this pairing. This fic was largely written for me to be able to cope with something that happened to me, so I really do not want it to seem like I think these two have a good or attractive relationship. Even though it is a het ship, it is not listed as such because, like I said, I am absolutely not writing this to romanticize the relationship that these two have.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If I get any shit from people re: the relationship between Guzma and Lusamine who didn't read my notes in the fucking summary, I swear to god...
> 
> To clarify, this takes place after Guzma and Lusamine exit Ultra Space and before post-game, so it's post-main-story for Guzma, at least. Post-Canon was the best description for where the fic takes place temporally, so that's just what I put for lack of better word choice.

Every time someone closed the front door, the whole house shook.

Part of that was because no one had enough self-control to not slam the door once they had entered, but the fact that the mansion was practically decomposing at this point didn’t help, either.

Whenever the grunts heard the loud “boom” of the door and sensed the vibrations of the walls and floors, they tensed up a bit. Like mice, they always looked quickly to see who was coming in, silent. If it was another grunt, they’d go back to whatever it was they were doing before, completely unfazed after the passing of a couple seconds. Guzma, however, was hard to read, so it took the grunts longer to decide what to do. If he was in a good mood, they’d flock to him. If he was quiet, they tried to ignore him. If he was walking quickly, the grunts scattered like Wimpod, trying to disappear as quickly as possible. Fast Guzma was angry Guzma, and angry Guzma was to be left alone in his room until he’d had a drink (or two, or three, or four, or five, or...).

This time, luckily for the grunts, it was Plumeria. She had dragged five bags—the big, reusable kind—worth of groceries in with her, and panted as she dropped them on the floor.

“Yo!” one of the grunts yelled, “Mom’s home!” He rushed down to meet Plumeria, a swarm of grunts rushed following him, eager to inspect the goods she had returned with.

“Thought I told y’all to stop calling me that,” Plumeria joked. It wasn’t a joke, really; Plumeria knew how much Guzma hated when the grunts compared them to parents, but she also knew that, to some of the grunts, “Mom” and “Dad” really were the roles she and the boss were playing.

“Help me put this stuff away, alright?” Plumeria delegated each of the bags to a grunt, even though she knew they’d all just hide whatever it was she bought in their rooms until it started rotting. They’d have to learn some responsibility, one of these days. One of the grunts reached for the bag closest to Plumeria, but she stopped them. “Not that one,” she said, “that’s for Guzma.”

The grunt backed away in understanding. If the bag was for Guzma specifically, the contents were probably… questionable, at best. Plumeria picked it up and headed up the stairs towards Guzma’s room.

After her painful trek out on the roof (which Plumeria felt she, let alone Guzma, was getting too old for), Plumeria knocked on Guzma’s bedroom door.

A long, muffled groan came in response from inside.

“It’s me, Plumes.”

Plumeria heard some incoherent mumbling and Guzma’s characteristic foot-dragging before he finally unlocked the door to let her in.

The room smelled like feet, and there wasn’t a single inch of the floor that wasn’t covered in dirty clothes or broken glass. Out of the corner of her eye, Plumeria noticed two tabs open on Guzma’s computer: Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary and… porn. She thanked the gods that be that the page on display was a picture of a napping dog, instead of something else.

Guzma creeped into his bed and motioned for Plumeria to sit next to him. It was warm, so Plumeria assumed he had been in there for at least a few hours, or maybe days.

“You get it?”

“I haul my ass all the way out to Akala, and you don’t think I have the decency to see your dumbass Hiker weed dealer while I’m there?” She threw a small plastic zip bag, which with the real reasons she went on errands that day inside, at him. “That guy’s a fuckin’ moron. ‘Yeah brah; no problem, dude.’”

“...Thanks.”

“You’ve been like this for, what, now, a week?” Plumeria waited for a response, but none came.

“You gotta get it together, man. When’s the last time you took a shower? You have _major_ body odor right now. At least you had the decency to change clothes every now and then, I guess…”

Guzma wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, especially from Plumeria, of all people. Wasn’t she supposed to be his friend? He reached under his bed for a lighter, among other things, but Plumeria grabbed his wrist before he could do much of anything.

“No.”

Guzma scowled and chucked his pillow at Plumeria’s face.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten, anyway? I’m not letting you get high until you eat something.” Plumeria helped Guzma place the pillow back under his head. Even as Plumeria helped him, Guzma refused to look at her. He hated the idea that other people knew when he was having a hard time, and even though it was fairly obvious that things weren’t going well for him, Guzma didn’t want to give Plumeria the additional evidence of the vague moisture around his eyes.

“That Ultra Space shit… it was that bad, huh?”

Guzma winced at the mention of it. Ultra Space, Lusamine… he really wished he could forget all of that.

“Anyway, I knew all you’d want to do was not have to think about it, and I know _that_ just means smoking, so I got you some snacks.”

He stared at Plumeria for a few moments in silence. “What kind?”

“Uh… Let’s see…” She reached inside of the bag and started taking some of the foodstuffs out to show him what she had bought. “I have that shitty sour candy you like, the Iapapa Berry kind… I have Doritos, because I know you’re a fucking gremlin…” Plumeria went on, listing the snacks she had and putting the items on display on the bed.

The bag was empty, but Guzma still noticed something sticking out through the fabric.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Hm? Oh. That’s mine. I forgot I put it in there.” Plumeria reached into the bag and pulled out a box of green tea. “It’s… not really like me, but I figured it was time to try something new, you know?”

Guzma stared at the box, unable to form words or even give a brief nod in understanding.

 _That’s not… No, it isn’t. Is it?_ he thought.

The Chikorita logo and the cream-colored box were still all too familiar.

That same box, not too long ago, had been staring at him in Lusamine’s kitchen, where the walls were decorated in all-too-sterile gold and white and where his miserable form was slumped over the counter.

“Why is it that every time I see you, you seem so dreadful?” Lusamine asked in her sickeningly prim voice.

Guzma answered by turning away.

“Hmph. Drink this, would you? Maybe then you would look less depressing.” She placed a white teacup on a white saucer, both with gold trim (of course) in front of him.

He picked the cup up by the handle and looked down into the green liquid, hot steam rising into his eyes.

“Well?” The impatience in Lusamine’s voice was asphyxiating. “Are you just going to stare at it? Drink it already.”

Guzma responded with hesitance: “It seems hot still.”

“If you were truly strong, you would already be drinking it.” Lusamine placed her hand on her hip.

The sting of Lusamine’s words forced Guzma to drink the tea without even thinking. It was in his mouth for less than a second before he spat it out again, sharp bumps from the burn on his tongue already rising.

“What is your problem? Are you really so pathetic that you can’t handle your tea being a little too hot?”

That wasn’t exactly a word Guzma cared for, “pathetic.”

Lusamine turned away from him. “You’ve been acting like a mop for the last few weeks now. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were on—”

She marched back to Guzma, now staring at the floor and shrinking into himself so as to try to take up as little space as possible.

“You told me you were sober.”

Yes, it was a bit of a white lie: at the time she had asked, Guzma hadn’t done anything within the last… week. But no, he was not sober in the general, habitual sense of the word (he was anything but). And now she was practically interrogating him in her kitchen.

Guzma knew by the click of her high heels that Lusamine was only a couple of feet behind him. He didn’t have to turn around and check.

“I can’t believe it. I let a useless _junkie_ in my home. I can’t work with a lying piece of shit like you!” She knocked the teacup off the counter with a terrifying amount of ease. It shattered to pieces on the marble floor, its crooked interior now exposed.

“Lusamine, please, I—”

“No. You know, when you started working with me, I thought I could change you. I thought I could find a way to get you to actually apply yourself.”

Guzma shuddered as Lusamine placed her hand on his shoulder. Lusamine traced her fingers along the side of Guzma’s neck and grabbed his face by the chin.

“Guzmania. Look at me.”

The sound of his full name. It was like Lusamine had dragged her long fingernails down his back.

“Look. At. Me.”

Unwillingly, he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, hoping she couldn’t feel his soul shaking underneath his skin.

“I need you to be completely sober by the time we start doing the real work, do you understand?”

Guzma blinked hard and nodded. He gasped quickly as Lusamine let go of him.

“Good. It’s a simple task. Even _you_ shouldn’t be able to fuck it up.”

Oh, how Lusamine had _no idea_ what she was talking about.

“You know, Guzmania,” she said, gingerly picking up the bits of porcelain off the floor as if nothing had happened, “when I first met you, I thought you actually had a couple of ounces of worth in you.” She took the remnants of the teacup and threw them in the trash. “But I guess I was wrong.”

Nothing that Lusamine was saying wasn’t anything that Guzma hadn’t already heard before, but it still felt like he was being dipped in acid. _It shouldn’t hurt,_ he thought, _Why does it hurt?_

“I thought that maybe, _maybe_ , if I made you work hard enough, then you might change. That you might finally realize your full potential. And then, together…” she trailed off and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you want that? Don’t you want people to see your strength the same way I do?”

Finally, she was able to get Guzma to give her his full, definite attention.

“When I saw you battling those employees, I knew there was something about you…” She stroked the outside of his hand with her thumb. “They tried to stop you, but I told them not to bother. They didn’t stand a chance. And I looked at you, and I knew that, if I just worked on you a little, if I tried to improve you, then maybe the two of us… we would be unstoppable.”

Guzma processed what she had said over and over again. Did she really just say that? Did she really just say that he, the failure who couldn’t even become a trial captain, could be _unstoppable_?

“I… I’m sorry, Lusamine. I’ll… try to be better for you.”

“Alright.” She pulled him up, placing her hands on his waist. “Now, all you’re going to have to do is do what I tell you. Do you understand?”

“...Yes.”

“Good.”

And like that, she had pulled his face up to her own and forced her tongue into his mouth. Guzma kissed back, still trying to process Lusamine’s almost instantaneous transition from overly-critical monster breathing down his neck to goddess with a tongue of honey. He understood even less the reason for the tears that were now streaming down his face.

Lusamine pulled away and brought Guzma up closer to her, in the way that she did to signal that she wanted him to kiss her neck (Guzma knew this because she had gotten at him the last time she did this, for he was unable to figure out what she meant). He placed his lips softly at her neck’s base and shut his eyes hard in a futile attempt to stop crying.

“Oh, Guzmania…” Lusamine cooed, “Guz… Guzmania… Guz… man… i… a… Guz...ma… ni… Guz… ma… Guzma… Guzma…”

“Guzma. Guzma!”

Plumeria was holding tightly onto both of Guzma’s shoulders. He was in his own bedroom, sitting with his knees tucked into his chest, sobbing violently.

“Guzma, what’s…?” Plumeria was panicking. What was she supposed to do? Guzma had never really been open about his feelings, but ever since he started spending time at the Aether Foundation, he had only become more secretive.

“Guzma, please…” Her voice faltered. “It’s okay… I’m here, Guzma… It’s me. It’s okay… You’re okay...”

She pulled him in close to her as he weeped, gently patting his back. “Shh… shh… It’s okay… Let it out, Guzma… You’re okay. You’re going to be okay…”

The wailing stopped after a few minutes, but Plumeria held Guzma until the tears stopped, too.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Plumeria asked after a few moments of silence.

“No,” Guzma sniffed, wiping his eyes off with the back of his hand. “It’s stupid.”

“If it makes you this upset, I don’t care if it’s ‘stupid.’”

Guzma grumbled, glaring at the box of tea, the cheery Chikorita making him feel sick to his stomach.

“That tea,” he said, finally, “Lusamine…” He heaved as though he were going to throw up, covering his mouth to prevent any more cries from escaping.

“You don’t have to explain; I get it.” Plumeria picked the box up from the bed. “You want me to get rid of it?”

Guzma nodded.

“Okay. I’ll take it back right away. And maybe I’ll get you some real food, while I’m at it.”

He exhaled, almost to show laughter, knowing that by “real food,” Plumeria just meant malasadas.

The two looked around at his room, at the mess just screaming “depressive episode” that he had produced.

“Maybe...” Guzma sighed. “Maybe keeping this team going… isn’t such a good idea. I mean, great as you are and everything, you can’t take care of all these kids by yourself, and if I get so worked-up over a fucking box of…” He shook his head and threw his arms up.

“Yeah…” Plumeria knew that it would have a horrible effect on the grunts, who had nowhere else to go, but Guzma in his current mental state was in no place to be in charge of much of anything. “Just don’t make any rash decisions, okay? You should really think this through.”

“I guess.”

“I’m here for ya, alright?”

No response.

“M’kay.” Plumeria pushed the hair out of his face and planted a kiss on his forehead. She got up and walked towards the door.

“I care about you, Guz. We all do,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Plumeria walked out on the roof again to get back to the main part of the mansion, this time more somber than the last. She wrung her hair out and inhaled.

“Y’all!” she shouted, “I catch any of you with this tea, you’re on my shitlist. You better not bring this shit in the house, you hear me?”

The grunts responded in an affirmative chorus. Plumeria knew that the grunts were too scared of doing anything wrong because they knew they’d get kicked off the team. They had nowhere else to go, so they were willing to follow whatever rules they had to.

Not that any of their efforts were going to matter anymore, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway thanks for reading my garbage vent fic... The abuse could have come across more explicitly, but it's hard to make myself relive that shit.
> 
> So, yeah, basically this is for all y'all with seemingly "stupid" triggers out there that never get tagged or that no one ever really cares to help you avoid, or that people actively make fun of you for. You did not deserve what happened to you, but you do deserve people who care about you and don't make fun of you for the things that bring back memories of those times, even if it's something like a specific brand of green tea or a DiGiorno pizza.
> 
> If there are any tags you think I should add/questions you have for me, just let me know in the comments!


End file.
